Hormones and Heart Health

It was long thought that menopause significantly increased a woman's risk of developing fatal heart disease. In fact, estrogen was believed to be protective against this risk, and that was one of the reasons many women were routinely prescribed hormone therapy as a matter of course ten or more years ago.

Now a new study published in the British Medical Journal finds that menopause is not the dividing line between heart health and heart disease. In fact, a 50-year review of mortality rates among women in the US, England, and Wales showed that any increased risk is due to aging not to menopause and declining estrogen levels at all.

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"Our data show there is no big shift toward higher fatal heart attack rates after menopause," lead researcher Dhananjay Vaidya, PhD, of Johns Hopkins, said in a statement. Instead, researchers found that heart disease mortality rates for women increased about 8% annually with no big spike at menopause.

"What we believe is going on is that the cells of the heart and arteries are aging like every other tissue in the body, and that is why we see more and more heart attacks every year as women age. Aging itself is an adequate explanation and the arrival of menopause with its altered hormonal impact does not seem to play a role," Dr. Vaidya told the press.

One surprising result of the study is that men younger than 45 were found to be at increased risk of dying from heart attacks, and researchers noted they should be looking at this group to figure out why.

So the study is good news for menopausal women, and not so good news for younger men.